


take my jacket, baby (I'll get wet for you)

by coronaofastar



Series: the requisite high school au [1]
Category: The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Crushes, F/F, Flirting, Fluff, Getting Together, High School AU, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 23:58:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17032371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coronaofastar/pseuds/coronaofastar
Summary: If anyone happened to ask Helen Blackthorn, no, she was very much not pining over Aline Penhallow, and would they like a lacrosse stick to the face?After all, no one said she had to tell the truth.In which Helen Blackthorn crushes considerably hard on Mayor Penhallow's daughter, listens to the sage wisdom of her freshman brother, and, well, gets a girl.





	take my jacket, baby (I'll get wet for you)

**Author's Note:**

> If you are reading this anywhere but ao3, it has been reposted without permission. Please let me know.
> 
> Helen and Aline are juniors, as is most of the TMI crew, and both Mark and Kieran are freshmen.

 

 If anyone happened to ask Helen Blackthorn, no, she was very much not pining over Aline Penhallow, and would they like a lacrosse stick to the face?

 After all, no one said she had to tell the truth.

 “Just ask her out, Helen,” Mark said, with the air of explaining to their little sister Dru that two and two made four.

 Sprawling face-down over the foot of Mark’s bed, Helen said, mournfully, into the duvet, “You don’t understand.”

 “Well, you’ve only invaded my room to yell about how pretty she is every day for the past two weeks. I’m sure I’ll understand with time.”

 Helen thought back and winced a little. He was right. “It’s just,” she started, flipping herself over to stare at the ceiling. Mark heaved a dramatic sigh that Helen, very graciously, chose to ignore. “I can’t just ask her out, are you kidding me? She’s - ”

 “- black-haired, pretty, put-together, definitely your type, love of your life, _but soft, what light through yonder window breaks, it is the east and Aline is the sun_ \- ”

 “Mark,” Helen sighed. “She’s out of my league.”

 There was a considering pause. “Elizabeth Longford-kind of out-of-your-league?”

 “We do _not_ speak of Liz Longford. That was ONE time. And...no. I don’t think so.”

 “Okay.” Mark’s face appeared above her. “Tell me how she’s out of your league, then.”

 “Uh - ” Helen held up her hand, ticking items off her fingers as she went. “Scary competent, persistent, has like, nerves of steel, whip-smart, _drop-dead gorgeous_ , and did I mention she’s Mayor Penhallow’s daughter?”

 Mark gave her an incredulous look. “You’re also all of those things. Except for being the mayor’s daughter,” he amended, before Helen could argue. “Look, I thought the same thing about Kier, okay? I figured he couldn’t be hitting on me and that he was just being really nice. Turns out he was, like, despairingly trying to hit on me because he thought I was way too good for him. We were going in circles for months.”

 Helen opened her mouth.

 “No questions from the class until I’m done,” Mark said sternly. “My point is - just take the shot, Helen. If she says yes to a date, you maybe get a girlfriend. If she says no, you can move on. You don’t really stand to lose anything.”

 Moment of silence.

 “Oh, I’m done now,” Mark added. “You can talk. What?”

 “One, I can’t believe I’m about to take relationship advice from a freshman,” said Helen weakly, “but I think you have a point.”

 Mark snorted. “Of course I do. Two?”

 “Two...how do you even despairingly hit on someone?”

 

 Of course, the following week that Helen was bound and determined to ask Aline out, she hardly got a chance. They didn’t have any classes together: Helen was taking Latin, and Aline was in French with Alec Lightwood; Helen had lacrosse practice after school while Aline worked on the school newspaper; every other subject they shared, they had different teachers, or were in the class different periods, or something. Sometimes she’d join Aline and Alec (and Alec’s siblings, and Alec’s boyfriend Magnus, and their friends Maia and Lily and - well, there was usually a fair amount of people. Alec was easy to love) at the lunch table, but more often than not she’d go off campus to a little sandwich shop nearby to get some peace and quiet, and to work on assignments.

 Besides, she didn’t want to pressure Aline by asking her in front of everyone, and if Helen was being really honest...she didn’t want to get turned down in front everyone, either.

 As it turned out, though, Aline came looking for her. It was late after practice on Thursday, everyone tired but chatty, morale high, when there was the unmistakable _squeege_ of the locker room door opening.

 “What?” yelled three voices from different directions, because Helen’s team could be rude when they wanted to.

 “Hey, I’m one of the Seraph writers - is Helen Blackthorn here?”

 Helen paused halfway through pulling on her jeans. The voice was familiar, but she couldn’t really place it with all the noise in the locker room. She peered around the lockers and - Angel, yep, Aline was standing there holding a to-go cup and a legal pad, with a pen tucked behind her ear - looking, for all the world, like a damn movie star in black pinstripe slacks and an oversized sunflower-yellow sweater.

 “We can ask for you,” one of the girls said helpfully. “Hey, CAAAAAAAPPP’NNNN!”

 The sound reverberated around the locker room. Helen covered her ears, wincing. “Jesus, Etta,” she shouted. “Don’t do that!”

 “You here, captain my captain?”

 “Yes,” sighed Helen, and peered around the lockers to find Aline looking right at her, smiling wryly. She felt herself flush. “Sorry about that. Give me five?”

 “Take your time, I can wait.”

 “Thanks.” Helen ducked back around to zip up her jeans and comb out the tangles in her long blond hair. The girls were clearing out as she hurriedly laced up her sneakers; by the time she came out to the benches with her backpack in tow, somehow more out of breath than if she’d been running laps, the locker room was pretty much empty.

 Aline had taken a seat on one of the benches, one leg folded beneath her. She looked up at Helen and smiled, as though she didn’t know she could send Helen into respiratory arrest with that smile. She probably didn’t. “Hey.”

 “Uh, hey.” Helen had always been taller than the other girls, lithe and strong, but now she felt as gangly and awkward as a newborn foal. She couldn’t really figure out what to do with her hands and settled for tucking them into her back pockets. “Thanks for waiting. What’s up?”

 Aline lifted her legal pad. “Sports interview,” she explained. “Would you mind?”

 “Um.” On one hand, Helen had no idea what to say in an interview. On the other hand, it meant she’d get to spend time with Aline, who seemed a little...nervous?

 “Oh, by the Angel, of course you mind,” Aline blurted, with a little laugh. “You just got done with practice and you’re tired and you probably want to go home, I’m sorry, this is terrible timing - ”

 “No!” Helen yelped. Loudly. Maybe too loudly, because Aline looked startled. “No, I’m good, don’t worry about it. Interview, sure. I’ve, uh. Never done one of these…?”

 Aline smiled sheepishly. “I’ve...never actually done one of these, either,” she admitted. “I cover one of the main articles, but the kid who usually writes the sports interviews got mono and won’t be back in time to do it before we run the issue, so. Here I am, I guess.”

 “Yikes,” said Helen, and had to mentally kick herself. “I mean, it kind of sucks that they pawned it off on you when you’ve never done it before.”

 “I actually volunteered when I saw who the interviewee was.” Here, a quick grin. “I figured you were the least likely to judge me for not knowing what to do. Not that, uh, not that I won’t do my best.”

 “I’d never judge you,” Helen said without thinking. Aline blushed, but she was smiling, and she met Helen’s gaze evenly. “Thank you,” she said softly. “That’s very kind.”

 Now Helen was the one blushing. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the fortitude to keep holding Aline’s gaze and looked at the floor instead. “So what do I have to do for the interview?”

 Aline patted the bench beside her. “Sit. We’ll get started.”

 

 “So what goes through your head, before a game?”

  “Uh...I try not to think at all, because I’m a worrier, but sometimes I try to think about how we have a good team that’s going to kick butt, you know.”

 Aline grinned. “Is that Polite Captainspeak for ‘we’re going to murder the Edom Demons’?”

 “Screw the Edom Demons,” Helen said vehemently -  more out of habit than anything, really, before she clasped a hand over her mouth. “Oh God, sorry.”

 “I won’t put it in the interview,” Aline assured her. “But, honestly?” She held out her hand for a high five with a wicked smile. “Screw the Edom Demons.”

 “A woman after my own heart,” said Helen, and obliged. She didn’t really register what she’d said until their hands seemed to touch for a beat longer than they should’ve. “I mean...you know what I mean.”

 “Maybe I do.” Smiling, Aline bent over her legal pad to scribble more notes, leaving Helen free to blink at her, gaping slightly. Did she just -

 “Do you have any pre-game rituals?”

 “Oh, yeah. I have to give one of my siblings a piggy-back ride around the field before the game. It’s a good warm-up, too.”

 “Aww, that’s sweet.” Aline’s pen scratched away. “You have five, six siblings, I think?”

 “Six,” Helen confirmed. “Mark’s a freshman here, and then there’s Jules, Ty and Livvy, the twins, Dru, and Tavvy. Tavvy’s just a baby.”

 “Oh, I know Mark,” Aline said thoughtfully. “He’s in the play with me.”

 “You guys are doing Romeo and Juliet, right?”

 “Yep. Mark makes an excellent Peter.”

 “He really is that bad of a singer,” Helen told her, and Aline laughed. It felt good to make her laugh. “Are you cast or crew?”

 “Cast. I’m your Juliet. Not, uh, literally _your_ Juliet, but um. You get what I mean.”

 “Maybe I do,” said Helen mischievously. That got her a chuckle. “Okay, last question, Helen. Pump-up songs?”

 “I have a whole playlist I threw together before my first game freshman year. There’s, like Disney and trap music and Sam Tinnesz on it.”

 “Which one song would be your favorite? Like, what really gets you hyped?”

 Helen chewed her lip. “Panic! At The Disco,” she decided. “High Hopes?”

 “Yes!” Aline shouted, grinning. “That one’s on my deadline playlist.”

 “You have a deadline playlist?”

 “Unfortunately. And I listen to it more than I should, which really says a lot.” She flipped through her notes. “Alright, that’s it. You’re good to go.”

 Helen couldn’t tell if Aline just sounded tired or maybe, maybe, like her, a little disappointed to be finished.

 “Do you have a ride?” Helen asked, as she fiddled with the straps of her backpack, watching Aline pack up. “It’s almost six.”

 “I’m just gonna walk.” Aline turned to give her a sweet smile. “Thanks for the offer, though.”

 They left the locker room together, footsteps echoing in the empty halls. It wasn’t until they got to the glass-fronted main doors that they realized that the originally sunny afternoon skies had given up their facade, and a steady drizzle now pelted the windows with every sign of progressing into a full-on storm.

 “Oh. Oh, no.” Aline hurried toward the doors, but didn’t push through them, just stared up at the skies with a hand pressed to the glass like they’d betrayed her. “How dare you,” she huffed. “Rude.”

 Helen came up beside her. For a moment they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, watching the rain in silence. “Helen?”

 “Yeah?”

 “Can I still take you up on that ride?”

 

 As it turned out, neither of them had an umbrella, and Helen’s red MPV was parked all the way at the far end of the student parking lot. Helen pulled off her varsity jacket and happily sacrificed it to cover both their heads. “It’s supposed to be waterproof, anyway,” she said, when Aline protested. “Alright, ready? Go!”

 They pushed the doors open and sprinted for it, shrieking and laughing as they splashed through puddles. The wind blew rain right into their faces, but with her arm around Aline’s shoulders (to hold up the jacket, obviously), Helen found that she didn’t really mind.

 “Go go go go go,” Helen gasped, as the car doors unlocked with a cheerful chirp. She threw herself into the dry safety of the driver’s side as Aline slammed the passenger door and dropped her backpack at her feet, still laughing breathlessly despite the fact that she was pretty much soaked, her hair plastered to her face in damp, dark tangles. “By the Angel,” she wheezed. “That was terrible, but I think that was the most fun I’ve had all week.”

 “0 out of 10 would do again, but 10 out of 10 would recommend.” Helen turned up the heating and turned on the heated seats for good measure. Aline was wriggling out of her rain-soaked sweater, revealing a dark blue tank top and very bare shoulders. Helen did her best not to stare. “Uh - where am I going, again?”

 “Up 23rd Ave,” directed Aline. “I’ll tell you where to turn.”

 The roads were mostly empty, but Helen drove slowly because the rain was coming down harder than ever. Aline was softly humming, but aside from that, the car was filled with companionable silence, only ever broken by Aline giving her directions. It seemed like far too soon Aline was saying, “Oh, turn in here.”

 Helen pulled into the driveway of the mayor’s house and killed the engine. The rain was still coming down hard, and both of them just sat there for a minute, listening.

 “Thanks for saving me from having to swim home,” Aline said wryly. “I owe you one.”

 “Hey, don’t mention it. I…” I really, really like you. “You’re pretty cool, Aline.”

 Aline nudged her shoulder with a smile. “You’re pretty cool, too, Helen,” she said, hefting her backpack. “I, uh. I guess I should head in.”

 What Helen meant to say was _Goodnight, get inside, get dry, and I’ll see you Monday_ , like a normal person. Instead what spilled out was, “Aline, wait.”

 Aline stopped just short of opening the car door and turned back to look at her. “Yes?”

 “I, uh. You said you owed me one.” _Take the shot, Helen._ “Would you, like, let me buy you coffee or something, sometime?”

 Aline blinked at her.

 “Like a date,” Helen clarified, anxiously flexing her fingers around the wheel. “Like as a date. Would you like to go on a date. With me.”

 “For coffee.” Aline’s voice was unreadable.

 “Yeah.”

 The longest three seconds of Helen’s entire life passed. She’d convinced herself that she was about to be rejected, prepared for the awkwardness that was bound to follow, and pleaded for the universe to open up a massive sinkhole and swallow her before she mustered the courage to glance over and saw the slow, radiant smile creeping onto Aline’s face. “I don’t think that’s how me owing you works,” she said, “but I’d love to, Helen.”

 I’d love to.

 I’d love to.

 “Okay, then,” Helen said. “I’ll text you when I get home?”

 Aline reached over, gave her hand a light squeeze that made Helen’s heart flutter. “Drive safe,” she said, and kissed her on the cheek, and, well - Helen may or may not have silently imploded on the spot. She imagined steam coming out her ears like a cartoon character. “And you’d better.”

 “Yes, ma’am.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. If you noticed the title...yeah, I meant to do that *eyes emoji*  
> 2\. I created Elizabeth Longford a while back when I was having FEELINGS about the unnamed Longford boy and his parabatai from CoHF. The joke here is that Liz is straight, and that's why she's out of Helen's league.  
> 3\. Yes, Etta is a reference to Magnus' lover, Etta  
> 4\. I only know because I looked it up, but in Romeo and Juliet there is apparently a character called Peter who is a terrible singer, and that's the character Mark's playing in this universe
> 
> Hope y'all enjoyed! I wrote all this just for you and certainly not so I could live vicariously through the characters hahahaha okay bye


End file.
